The Conservatives’ latest attack on unions, Bill C-377, is irksome. But labour's real problem is that too many workers find unions irrelevant.

The fun just keeps happening. On Wednesday evening, Conservative MPs (with the exception of five brave souls) pushed Bill C-377 through the Commons. It’s designed to tie unions up in red tape and — its backers hope — embarrass labour’s leadership.

A day earlier, Michigan’s Republican-dominated legislature rammed through a so-called right-to-work law aimed at weakening unions in that state.

And Ontario Conservative leader, the rollicking Tim Hudak, says if his party wins power he’ll scrap what’s known as the Rand formula — which requires all employees represented by unions to pay dues.

Meanwhile, Conservative backbench MP Pierre Poilievre is agitating for Canadian right-to-work measures that would hamstring unions under federal jurisdiction, particularly those that represent public sector workers.

All of this comes as Conservatives and their media allies rage non-stop against what they call union bosses.

In the Commons last week, backbench Conservatives levelled almost as many attacks on “union bosses” for sins they didn’t commit as they did on the New Democrats for their non-existent support of a carbon tax.

So it’s no wonder that the unions are worried. This federal government has a hate on for organized labour. And if Hudak wins in Ontario, the hate could spread.

But labour’s real problems go far beyond the provocations of the right. Indeed, what little research does exist suggests that right-to-work laws have little effect.

One classic study, published in the 1975 Journal of Political Economy, concluded that the effect of U.S. right-to-work laws was mainly symbolic and that other factors better explain why unions have had such a tough time in places like the U.S. south.

Another piece earlier this year by the publication Investors Business Daily came to similar conclusions. It noted that the rate of unionization among employees in the right-to-work state of Nevada, for instance, is well above that of many pro-union jurisdictions and exceeds even the national average.

What’s really killing unions is not the political right. It is that, for too many workers, organized labour is no longer relevant.

In 2011, federal figures show, 31 per cent of Canadian workers overall were unionized. Of these, the vast majority are middle-aged or older. For younger workers between the ages of 15 and 24, the rate of unionization is just under 16 per cent.

Moreover, union membership is concentrated increasingly in the public sector. Only 16 per cent of all Canada’s private sector workers are members of labour unions. When Conservatives rant on about the fat-cat public workforce, they find a ready audience.

The reasons for all of this are well-known. Manufacturing, which had been the bedrock of unionism, has collapsed in North America. Part-time and contract employment are the new norms.

Unions — which understandably pay attention first and foremost to their own members — haven’t lobbied hard enough to tighten up the employment standards legislation that allows these low-wage practices.

Nor have most unions figured out a way to deal with a new kind of workplace, where people no longer labour in large factories and where strikes can be circumvented by technology.

The Canadian Autoworkers and their soon-to-be merger partner, the Communications Energy and Paperworkers, say they want to expand their reach into the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed. We shall see how that works out.

But until labour addresses these fundamental issues, the hardest of hard-line Conservatives will continue to smirk and poke.

They are jackals circling their prey. They can’t bring the beast down themselves. But they eagerly anticipate its collapse.

Note to readers: Most Star writers, including me, are members of the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Managers, who determine what is published in the Star, are not.

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